


I've been down on bended knee

by runakvaed (Nordbo)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, I just need to put this out there somehow so I can move on, sorry about that, that sounded dramatic, the priest!au that will never be finished, this is an unfinished draft, which I had to put on here because tumblr was being difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 08:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordbo/pseuds/runakvaed
Summary: unfinished priest!au, in chronological fragments





	I've been down on bended knee

  **\- 1995 -**

Little Cassian Andor is all of eight-and-a-half years old when he decides that, when he’s big, he’s going to be a priest. Sister Mona kneeling down to him, smiling, and telling him what a wonderful idea she thinks that is, is one of the clearest memories of his childhood. They’re in the yard at the orphanage, and her white robes symbolling her order are stained with green grass and soft brown earth at the bottom edge.

“I’m sure you’ll be the very best of them,” she tells him.

He beams childishly back at her.

 

*

 

**\- 21 YEARS LATER - APRIL, 2016 -**

In contrast, Jyn Erso was never made to be much of a believer. But she _is_ and has always been a good friend, which is why she, at 6:47 on a Sunday morning no less, is on her way to church in the passenger’s seat of Bodhi’s car.

 “You’ll like it, I swear,” he says. She can tell that he’s both excited and nervous but trying to suppress the latter; typical Bodhi. She’s pretty sure he was prepared to beg and plead if necessary to get her to come with him, but she’s known him too long to put up much of a front.

“The priest is a bit distant, but the deacon’s really nice. You’ll like him.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I know. Sorry. But it’s been helping me a lot coming here, and I thought it might help…”

_Might help you as well_ , is what he was going to say, she’s sure.

“I doubt that.”

She’s been to this church just once before, about six months ago. Her father’s funeral. All she really remembers of the whole event is a cold minister and an even colder autumn wind blowing up the skirt of the black dress she’d bought on clearance for the occasion.

“Give it a chance, please. For Galen?”

Her father’s death took its toll on both of them, but while Bodhi may have taken the lowest dive he’s also the one to come back up the fastest again. Jyn just feels stagnate. She’s probably starting to worry him, and that’s the last thing she wants to do; he’s like her little brother, even if he’s almost a year older than her.

“Fine,” she says, “just this once.”

Jyn doubts anything in this church is going to lift her spirits as much as seeing Bodhi grin at her like he is now.

 

*

 

“So. Deacon, right?”

“Transitional, yes. You can call me Cassian. Just, maybe not when Father Draven can hear you,” he adds. Well, Bodhi was right; he seems nice, a lot more approachable than the stiff Father she’d met in the church door.

 

*

 

**\- MAY -**

Cassian’s sitting on the bus, head leaned back to catch the weak sun coming through the large windows, eyes closed, when someone sits down next to him.

“Don’t you priests get a car or something? Like a church-mobile?” Jyn asks; he’s a little worried how easy it is to identify her by the sound of her voice alone. He cracks open an eye to squint in her direction.

“Father Draven gets the church-mobile today, seeing as _he’s_ the priest and I’m still the deacon.”

“Yes well, you’re also the one sitting on the bus wearing that collar,” she points to his clerical collar, “I thought that was a priest thing.”

“I’m still a cleric, I can wear one if I choose to.”

“…because it gets you a better seat on the bus?”

He huffs out a laugh, turning slightly towards her.

“Sure, let’s say that.”

He probably enjoys her grinning back at him a little more than he should. (When he notices her knee against the side of his leg it’s already too late to move away without bringing attention to it. At least that’s what he tells himself.)

 

*

 

It’s _very_ awkward being around someone you had a rather heated dream about the night before. But it’s even _more_ awkward being around them when they’re the priest (deacon, whatever) currently preaching at church as you sit in the pews with your friend. She really should just have stayed home today. It’s extremely difficult to concentrate on his words when she still remembers fragments of his breath in the crock of her neck, fanning over her skin, goosebumps raising where his fingers have never touched her outside the realm of dreams.

 

*

 

She's surprisingly easy to talk to when she wants to be.

There's a...  _lilt_  to her voice when she's not being scathingly confrontational or critical. It reminds him of the feeling of listening to choirs singing back home. A comfort, maybe. She doesn't seem the type to take up singing, but he still wants to sit and listen to her forever.

 

*

 

“Heard any nasty confessions lately?”

“Why? You’ve got anything you want to confess to me?”

(Neither of them is really sure if that was a joke or not.)

 

*

 

**\- LATE JUNE -**

There’s something calm about the cemetery behind the church, Bodhi’s right about that much at least. Even if she’ll never understand her father’s choice, his insistence really, to be buried at a catholic church, Jyn can’t help but respect him for seeking a kind of peace in death that he never found in life. The gravel paths and surrounding trees are so far from his lab, but it’s a nice place to… rest.

_Beloved father and husband_. It’s a weak description, but what she thought of and felt for him is unlikely to fit on a tombstone.

Footsteps walk up behind her, slowing down as they get closer. Hesitant. She’s becoming a little too familiar with that feeling.

 “It’s a nice day for a visit,” Cassian says as he comes to stand next to her, gesturing to her father’s tombstone.

"That's a nice way to put it, 'visiting'."

"You miss him." It's not even a question. Either he knows her better than she thought, or she's just that obvious. She wonders which option is the more damning for her.

Cassian shifts on the gravel.

"I'm sure he's in a be-"

"Please don't."

It comes out a lot harsher than Jyn had planned.

"I'm sorry," she backtracks, "I know you're trying to make me feel better, but I'm... You're not wrong, I do miss him. It's been strange without him." She feels a little warmer with him standing this close to her. She didn't notice his hand on her elbow before, and wonders when he put it there.

“I’m not even sure I really knew him all that well. I’m not sure he knew _me_ that well either.”

"I'm sure whatever you do with your life, your father would have been proud of you, Jyn."

The wind blows her bangs into her face, and like he’s been waiting for permission, for an excuse, his hand sweeps the hairs back in place behind her ear, lingering there, lightly hovering at her jawline.

She leans her head to the side, into his open palm. He doesn’t move away.

Her own hands find their way to the front of his jacket, gripping the lapels, moving slowly upwards guided by instinct and whatever heavy wonder has settled in his eyes; there’s nothing she wants more than to run her fingers softly over his rough cheek, to stroke the sharp line of his jaw and pull him even closer. He’s always so put together. She wants to see him undone.

She’s close enough to feel the soft puff of his breath on her face when the firm “ _Jyn_.” leaves his lips, pushed out like it fought its way there.

Before she knows what’s going on he’s pulled himself away from her gripping fingers and taken several steps backwards. “We… I _can’t_. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…. I have to go.”

He turns sharply enough for gravel to spray back at her feet, and leaves in the direction he came from.

She’s left standing there, pondering, not for the first time, how his body would feel pressing her up against the stone wall of the church behind her.

On her way home, she wonders who she really went to the church to see; her dead father who couldn’t hear her anyway, or Cassian, who may still be amongst the living, but desperately clinging to a different plane than the one she feels stuck on. She probably knows the answer, even if she won’t wholly admit it to herself yet.

 

*

 

He wonders when he stopped wearing the collar as a comfort and started wearing it as a shield.

 

*

 

(It’s all different after the day in the cemetery.)

 

*

 

**\- JULY -**

Jyn’s usual way of dealing with situations like this (a random dark-haired man in a random bar), fails her for the first time. On some level, she knows it didn’t work because he didn’t have the right kind of dark eyes, and there’s no point in trying this tactic again. There will only ever be one person with those eyes she wants to see blown wide, open and inviting, and she won’t ever meet him in a random bar somewhere.

 

*

 

It’s a sin, but it’s not _just_ a sin anymore. He doesn’t just want her body (holy father help him, but he does), he wants her mind, he wants her smile. He wants to listen to her complain about the price hike in petrol until the world with all its obligations fade away, and he can look into her eyes and not feel shame or wrongness at _whatever_ this is. In his dreams, he fits just perfectly in the space between her legs, his slim hips slotting in effortlessly in a way his conscious mind has no frame of reference for. When he wakes it’s to a hardness he has to breathe in and out deeply for several minutes to make go away again.

It’s different from anything he’s ever known. But it also makes him want to leave everything he does know behind and follow this thread that’s bound them together. To pull on it, entwine it between his fingers, and see where it will lead him.

 

*

 

“You were right,” Jyn says, sitting with Bodhi in their living room on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Of course I was,” he says with a smirk. They’re getting more frequent again these last few months. “But what was I right about this time?”

“I do like the deacon.”

“See? I told you…” he trails of at the very pointed look on her face. “Jyn. No.”

And just like that, at the disbelief in his voice, her cheeks flush, and she can’t look at him anymore. It’s as obvious a confirmation to his suspicions as anything she could have said.

“Jyn, you _can’t_. You can’t be _serious_.”

“Now you sound like him,” she mumbles into the sleeves of her knitted sweater where she’s currently hiding her face.

“What, I _sound_ like– okay, what exactly happened?” he’s full on flustered now, and that’s just another thing for her to feel bad about.

“ _Nothing’s_ happened. Technically. I just, it’s just difficult.”

Bodhi deflates a little at her frail tone, her hands picking at a loose thread.

“I’m so sorry Jyn. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she sighs, finally looking up again. “I just needed someone else to know.”

 

 

*

 

Sister Mona’s ability to see right through him never fails.

”I don’t believe you asked for my council instead of going to father Draven because you value my guidance higher than you do his,” she says, quietly. “I believe you did it because you already know what his answer will be, and it’s not the one you’re looking for.”

While he may not have expected judgement from her, he had still expected something more than this peaceful acceptance. She knows him so well, maybe he should have known her better too.

He sighs gently. “It feels like betrayal. And not just of God, of myself. How is that right?”

“Cassian,” she puts her hand on his arm, squeezes gently. “My child. We are not perfect, try as we might. You don’t owe it to your past self to stay on a path set forth by a child, not when God is so obviously calling you to another purpose.”

He sees the wind lightly ruffle her short greying bangs that are peeking out from under her hood as he avoids her eyes.

“But… this isn’t who I’m supposed to be.”

“And you believe you somehow know better than our holy father?”

Holy father forgive him. If this is really a test, he is going to fail.

 

*

 

**\- AUGUST –**

Jyn’s breaking point is more of an _enough is enough_ sort of moment on their way home from Sunday service.

“Pull over. Now.”

“What? Jyn, we’re fifteen minutes from home and it’s raining.”

“I have to go back.”

 

*

 

Cassian is in the middle of the pews, collecting printed out salmons left behind by other church-goers.

He looks up to see her marching towards him, and frowns at the steely, determined look on her face. “Is everything all ri– “

She grabs on to his _stupid_ collar, drags him down to her and, with no hint of remorse, pushes her lips into his. It’s a graceless thing, but also far softer than she had planned; there’s a surprised sound in the back of his throat that morphs into a quit whine, and she swallows them both. Dimly she registers the papers he was holding falling around their feet, scattering on the floor, and his hands settling lightly on her waist. She pulls back and his face is close, frozen in an expression of surprised confusion and disbelief, making what she has to do next even harder.

“There,” she says, stepping back from him, eyes flickering away. She misses the soft weight of his hands already. “I had to do that once. I’m sorry.”

When she turns away she feels his fingers wrap around her wrist, pulling her back towards him, somehow closer than before.

“Jyn…” The sound of her name is wrenched from him, like it pains him to say it. His creased forehead comes down to rest on hers, eyes squeezed shut, mouth parted and breathing shallowly.

“You–you, you can’t just–“

“Stop telling me what I can and cannot do. I’m very well aware, thank you.”

His eyes open and flicker down to her lips, fingers curling around her ear and into her loose, rain-damp hair. “Are you a temptress? Have you been sent here to test me?”

Had his voice been anything but the small, fragile thing it is right now, she might have laughed at him. But the open look on his face is too important to mock.

“No. Cassian, no. Please…” his nose is brushing hers, and she’s losing focus. His breath stutters.

He leans down so slowly, his lips finding hers again, achingly soft and hesitant.

Jyn presses into him, and it’s like something in him breaks then, arms going around her, pulling her into him; she doesn’t want to break him in any way, but she’ll take this if it means she gets to help build him back up again.

 

*

 

Her arms around his neck feels better than any holy embrace ever could. _For thy love is better than wine_ pops into his head like a thought he’s been trying to bury under commandments and propriety and church law. Jyn moans, and all logical thought flies out of his head. He’s moving with an instinct he didn’t even know he had.

There’s the sound of a car honking aggressively on the street outside, and the world comes rushing back. Beyond her shining eyes, beyond her soft lips and her strong spirit, there’s his duty to the path he chose for his life long ago.

He’s a deacon. He’s going to be a _priest_.

“Jyn, I’m… I’m supposed to – I took _vows_. I shouldn’t be _doing_ this.” His arms loosen around her.

If her face falls a little, it really is only just a little. She was expecting this. He doesn’t know what to feel anymore.

“I know. I just wanted to… just the once. I’m sorry.” She runs her hand down his jaw, further down, skimming the edge of his collar, and then lets it drop to her side.

He exhales deeply, sees the hair of her long bangs move a little from the closeness. “I’m sorry too.”

There’s a pressure he can’t quite identify in his chest when she turns on her heel and walks back out into the rain.

 

*

 

When Jyn gets home and kicks the door shut behind her, Bodhi is there waiting in the living room.

“So?”

The look on her face must have said it all, because he moves towards her and envelops her in a tight hug. She’ll never admit to the little dry sobs she breathes into his shoulder, and he would never make her.

She’s never been anyone’s first choice, so why should that change now.

 

*

 

She's not at service the following Sunday, or the Sunday after that.

He doesn't spot her walking the gravel paths of the cemetery for weeks, and he stops expecting whoever sits down next to him on the bus to be her.

He should feel relieved, he really should. But none of that helps when he looks up at the painting of the holy mother at the lobby of the church and sees Jyn’s eyes. He blinks, and it’s gone.

It takes him nearly three weeks to notice that Bodhi isn't coming to Sunday service either. It only occurs to him when he shows up at the tail end of an evening prayer on a Friday and corners Cassian in the door to the lobby, a determined look pinching his lips together.

"Jyn, she's stubborn."

"Yeah. She is."

Bodhi shifts from side to side.

"I thought she was doing better, you know, after everything with Galen. I know things are a little..." he swallows thickly, "awkward between you right now, but I think she misses you."

He's suddenly having trouble looking Bodhi in the eye. "I miss her too."

Bodhi straightens up, and hands Cassian a slip of paper. An address. 

"I'm gonna be out for the rest of the day. I don't need any details, I don't want to know anything, I just think you need to talk."

Cassian looks from the scribbled address up to Bodhi's face and finds no judgment there.

"Thank you, Bodhi."

"Uhm, yeah. Okay. No problem." He pauses. “Cassian?”

“Yeah?”

“Sh-she’s the only family I have left.”

Bodhi turns on the spot and is out the door before Cassian can respond. He’s left in the lobby with a crumbled piece of paper, not-Jyn’s eyes staring down on him from the portrait on the wall, and that undetermined pressure in his lungs that’s come back in full effect.

It takes him nearly an hour to act on it.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry this is all. I have other bits, but they take place much later in the story, or they don’t fit in at all. sooooo fill in the blanks with your imagination? also I would like to apologise because I know next to nothing about catholicism and I’m sorry if I stepped on any toes or undoubtedly got some facts wrong.


End file.
